rewrites

[pathele]

Question:
When you are writing and you realize (through review or epiphany) that your early chapters need a serious rewrite. Do you forge ahead with what you have to keep momentum, or do you go back an rewrite under the belief that it will help in the save time in the long run?

Have you ever lost momentum on the whole project because of going back to rewrite early portions?

-paul

[blgarver]

Keep writing.  Jot down the things that came to you so you can return to them during your rewrite, but don't stop moving forward.  For a long time I edited/rewrote as I went, and I never finished anything.  Now I've finished one pretty solid short story, and am within a week or two of completing my first novel.

Granted, many of the first chapters need rewrites, and there are some scenes I need to add in to make later stuff make sense.  But, I dont' want to stop and go back to fix that stuff right now, because with the way I write, ten other things could spring up that would force me to go back yet again and rewrite/add scenes.  So in my case it would be a monumental waste of time to try and fix all the stuff right now, before I finish the first draft.  If I have the spine of the story finished, and I know that no other major develpments will occur, then I can have a better idea of what I need to go back and cut out or fill in or add or alter in order for it to fit the rest of the story.

But, if the rest of the story isn't already written, then I don't really have a good idea of what things should be meddled with in the rewrite.  That's why it's called a RE-write.  You can't RE-anything unless you've done it at least once already.

So, whatever this advice from an unpublished no name self-proclaimed writer is worth, that's my two cents.    Good luck with your project.

BLG

[Josh]

Agreed. If you keep looping back before the story is even done, you'll get stuck in one of those Star Trek time loops and will have to keep going through the same episode until the season's done and they cut your funding. Heheh.

Really though, my technique is to keep moving on. I make a mental or physical note on what I will need to address come revision time, and I'll write on. This keeps the pace up, not only in the story, but in my own energy level, and keeps me from getting bogged down by continually going back, rewriting, scrapping what I did, then moving ahead a little, seeing something I need to fix, going back...yadda yadda

Even if you have some bubbling, quivering mess of a story laid out on the dissection table once you've finished the first draft, at least it's done. You have a beginning, an end, and a bunch of little jiggly bits strewn throughout the middle. Now is the time to snap on the latex gloves and pick up the scalpels to slice and dice. It may get messy, but at least you have a somewhat cohesive beast of a story to work on, rather than tossing random bits into the chopper to get mashed up and made into sausage.

www.jrvogt.com

[Rashad 117]

I generally mush on with writing. The mistakes I've made(and I've made a lot) I usually make a little note of a paragraph here or sentence there that I know  throws some elements of the story off but those I'll handle  once I've finshed and gone over everything and read my own novel to see what could or should be changed. Don't wanna get stuck writing and then re-writing the same piece over and over again and not get the rest of the story done. Best thing is to finish writing the story that's often the hardest part. Re-writes can come later.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Depends on the scale of the problem.

If you're six chapters down a hole because the plot took a drastically wrong direction, trying to push on rather than going back and fixing it can be a very bad idea. I tend to fix major things as soon as I find them, even if that means going back, and leave little things for later passes.

But then - it does appear that every writer gets a different set of things easily or for free - some are naturally great at character and have to work hard on plot, some the other way around and so on - and what I appear to have got more easily than many is the abiility to sit down and produce a few thousand words every week, come rain, snow, hail, of hyperactive sixteen-month-old.  If actually finsihing things is a problem for you, my example may not be a sensible one to follow.

[Dom]

I agree that it depends on the scale of the problem.  For me, it mainly hinges on overall large plot points...if one of those are skewed, or screwed, or really messed up, I'll correct it because it can affect the rest of the story.  If it's just minor things like the feel of a particular scene--a scene that is going to stay but needs a rewrite to tweak the details--or to tighten up poor/sloppy writing, well, that's what the second draft is for.

I'll put author's notes in square brackets when I notice something that needs fixing, but isn't major enough for me to do it *now*.  So when I do go back to go over it, I remember what was wrong before.  But I only re-write when entire scenes are inserted/taken out of the story or there's major plots changes.

[Wolfeyes]

I keep writing. Usually even if I know I really don't like the scene the way it is I keep writing or if there's a spot that doessn't feel right I just put in bold red "come back here" so when I go over it again I know which spots were my trouble spots. And sometimes by going on I get a better idea of how to fix the problem based on what came after and then I might go back and change it then instead of later dependning on what change I want to write.

[Kali]

I save rewrites for those days when I want to write but I'm feeling stuck.  Rather than turn writing into a chore and try to pummel the pages out of me, I go back and tweak scenes, rewrite passages or pages, or fix things I wanted to fix.  This is also where I usually go back and strengthen certain hints that turned out later to be a major cool thing.

For instance, in one story, early chapters showed the protagonist working with these hand-blown glass jars.  At the time I wrote that scene, they were just something for her to be putting on the shelves in her store.  When I later had the protagonist trapped in the ruins of a house with an evil spirit, I had to stop and think about how to get her out of it.  I had established some critical facts about her personality and situation that made her unable to exorcise the spirit entirely or otherwise banish it, but she plainly couldn't let it go.  Which sort of left me with trapping it.  And that made me think of the glass jars.   So I wrote on, with her trapping the spirit in a glass *bottle*.  The next time I got stuck, I had a note tacked up over my desk to fix this ("glass jars = bottles") and was able to work on that.  I changed the jars to bottles, made the description of them longer and more intricate, and threw in additional references to them from time to time.

It warms me up, gets the creative motor running so I can get past the stuck bits.  But I don't stop where I am and go back to rewrite.  Never interrupt a flow.

[pathele]

Thanks for all the great responses. The main difference in the situation that I was facing was that I was only starting on the second chapter and it was brought to my attention that I had shoe-horned enough bare-bones action into the first chapter to make 2-3, and that I had left out some very important explainations of my world and characters. I decided that at the point I was, it was better to rework that first chapter, make it a stronger foundation for future works.

I do agree that it is better to go forward than to get wrapped up in what you have already written. you can fix it later, but in this case the rewrite took the story in a very different direction and I think, made it more of the story that I am trying to tell.

So is there a point where, because it is early enough, that it it better to rewrite? In this specific case it was for me. I'm interested in your experiences/thoughts.

-paul 

[blgarver]

I've done it once on the book I'm writing now, and it was beneficial to the story.

I got half way through this chapter and wasn't really feeling in "the zone" but chugged on anyway.  A few days later I was feeling very much "in the zone" and looked at the chapter again; it made me want to punch myself.

So I scrapped the original attempt for that chapter and started with a totally new document.  I'd had a minor breakthrough in they day or so break I had taken, and a simple switch in POV solved the problem.  The chapter flowed. 

That was chapter 13, and that happened last weekend, the 10th & 11th.  That spurred some major inspiration, because by the 17th & 18th, I was on Chapter 20, and very happy about the chapters in between.  And now my momentum is slowed and I'm kinda trudging through chap 20. 

Every time I start writing I read back a few pages to bring my mind back into the story, and I always polish up and rewrite words or sentences that catch my eye. 

[Maiafay]

I'm currently revising in the middle of a story...and simply because my skill has improved drastically than when I first began it. When you have that problem (and yes, it is a problem...trust me), I think there is no right or wrong way to complete the task. While realistically I should wait until I'm all finished, I simply cannot reread my first few chapters without cringing.

So, if it's that bad...I say Revise At Will. 

[Nemo]

I find that I rewrite as I go.  Being my own worst critic, if something strikes me as being off, I fix it on the fly then when I reach a point that I can stop with the writing for a moment I see if it holds up.  If not, then I get a second opinion and keep writing in the mean time.

I once had a teacher tell us to write in reverse, start with where you want to end up then figure out how to get there.  She didn't keep her job long, but it was interesting advice.

[eviladam]

I was mostlly finished with my first novel when I looked back over it and realised all I had was an really good premise and a bunch of action sequences. Crank had a better plot than my book I swear.

So I scrapped the biggest part of it and I'm now doing a massive rewrite, trying to work in a plot around all the violence.